Hen Comb

Wet ground surrounds Hen Comb, with Mosedale on one side and Whiteoak Moss on the other, and hardly any approach stays dry. Start from Loweswater village. There is a little informal parking by the telephone box above the Kirkstile Inn and another space across Church Bridge, and the bigger car park at the foot of Scale Hill adds about 2 km.

A lane runs from the village to Kirkgate Farm, and a track beyond it follows the intake wall to a ford on Mosedale Beck. There is no bridge. The stepping stones are slippery, and nobody should try them with the beck in spate. Across the ford the grass ridge climbs in two steps, over Little Dodd and then to the summit. Come back by the bridleway down Mosedale, which crosses the beck on a footbridge but is marshy for much of its length. The loop is just under 10 km with about 430 m of climbing.

Strong walkers fit Hen Comb into a longer round of the Loweswater Fells. They drop into Mosedale from Mellbreak, climb Hen Comb's pathless grass, then cross the tussocks of Whiteoak Moss to Gavel Fell and Blake Fell.

The summit is a grassy dome with a cairn on a small rocky outcrop. For a fell of 509 m the view is good, along the Buttermere valley to the Grasmoor range and over both ridges of the Western Fells.

Whiteoak Mine

Lead was mined here in the nineteenth century. Whiteoak Mine worked from 1864 to 1891, and you can still see the pit that held its waterwheel. There was also a failed lead trial on the eastern flank, and small iron workings near the outlet of Floutern Tarn.